1. Field of the Disclosure
This invention relates to mobile communications.
2. Description of the Related Art
The “background” description provided herein is for the purpose of generally presenting the context of the disclosure. Work of the presently named inventors, to the extent it is described in this background section, as well as aspects of the description which may not otherwise qualify as prior art at the time of filing, are neither expressly nor implicitly admitted as prior art against the present invention.
Some items of user equipment (UE) can make use of a mobile Internet (data) connection but do not necessarily require such an Internet connection for normal operation. An example of such equipment might be a portable gaming device or an electronic book (e-book) reader device. Here, the device may have sufficient stand-alone functionality that a user can enjoy owning and operating the device in the long term without needing to set up a mobile data service with associated ongoing costs.
However, the device manufacturer or retailer may realise that the functionality of the device, and hence the user's enjoyment of the device after purchase, can be enhanced by connecting the device to a mobile data network. For example, in the case of a portable gaming device, this could allow interactive games to be played away from the home, or high scores and other game data to be uploaded or downloaded to a game server. In the case of an e-book reader device, a mobile data network connection could allow e-books to be purchased or otherwise downloaded away from the home, or could allow a subscription to a daily newspaper or other real-time publishing arrangement to be fulfilled.
So, the use of the mobile data network can make the user's experience of the purchased device more attractive. It is therefore in the interests of the manufacturer of the device to encourage the user to enable a mobile data network service.
Another incentive for encouraging the user to enable a mobile data network service is that a commission may be payable to the manufacturer and/or to the retailer when the user establishes a chargeable mobile data network account.
One way to encourage a user to establish a chargeable mobile data network account, and also to demonstrate the added enjoyment that such a mobile data connection could bring to the user's experience of the device, is to provide a trial period of perhaps two to four weeks, during which period the user may make use of a mobile data network connection freely, without having to establish a long-term or otherwise chargeable contract with the mobile data network provider. At the end of the trial period, the user has to make a choice as to whether to continue using mobile data network access, in which case the user must start to pay for it, or to cease using mobile data network access.
A technologically straightforward way of allowing such a trial period would be to equip each UE device, as sold, with a conventional mobile SIM (subscriber identification module) card which is activated to a mobile data network. The manufacturer enters into an agreement with the mobile data network provider so that the manufacturer pays for any mobile data access made during the first two to four weeks of use of any of the individual SIM cards. At the end of the trial period of use, the user's free access (that is to say, the access paid for by the manufacturer) is terminated so that the user is forced to choose whether to establish a chargeable account or to cease using mobile data with the device.
However, a disadvantage of this technique is as follows. Whenever a SIM card is initially activated with a mobile network, the entity carrying out the activation has to pay a fee to the mobile data network. At the time of filing the present application, such a fee is typically between 1 and 10 for each SIM card.
This fee is perhaps acceptable for a manufacturer when the manufacturer is reasonably certain that the purchaser will go on to establish a chargeable contract using that SIM card. So, in the case of the purchase of a mobile telephone, the activation fee can be absorbed by the manufacturer or retailer because commission will be payable when the user starts to make chargeable calls. However, with a data-only device of the type described above (that is to say, a device which already has adequate functionality without necessarily needing a mobile data network connection), there may be some unwillingness by the user to bother with a chargeable mobile data network connection. This could mean that the manufacturer has to pay a fee for each SIM card in each device is sold, but only a relatively small proportion of the SIM cards are eventually linked with a chargeable mobile data account.